Can I Use Deep Cycle Battery for Starting?

To the people who wondered about can I Use Deep Cycle Battery for Starting? Yes, you absolutely can use it without any doubt.

However, you shouldn’t depend on this battery for starting a vehicle or engine too much. You see, although it’s capable enough, it is not specifically designed for this particular purpose.

Deep Cycle Battery is used for many purposes as it can provide a consistent amount of electricity for a longer period.

Moreover, deep cycle batteries are very popular for their vast enough capacity that can operate a vehicle without any motor/generator. Therefore, these batteries are suitable for many purposes. Especially for heavy-duty powering tasks.

Further, this long-term sustained electricity provider will work till it slowly discharged 90% percent of this capacity. Lastly, we can’t wait to acknowledge you with everything about Deep Cycle Batteries.

Table of Contents

What Is a Deep Cycle Battery?

Some of us have a lot of questions about what is a deep cycle marine or automobile battery. Or to be more precise, can a deep cycle battery work as a cranking battery or a starting battery.

Further, is it alright to use a deep cycle battery for starting boat motor or car engine is a common worry as well? Therefore, knowing what a deep cycle battery is, will surely lessen your confusion.

So, here’s a proper concept of what a deep cycle battery is-

A Deep Cycle Marine Battery is a lead-acid battery using the same chemical science as regular cranking batteries.
However, its design and operating process are quite distinct from regular starting batteries.
Unlike a boat/car’s cranking battery, it is developed to produce and process a steady amount of electricity flow for a long-lasting period.
Deep cycle battery can operate being drastically discharged without any damages whereas the average starting battery needs a constant charge.
Prime uses of special batteries like Deep Cycle or Marine batteries are in vehicles (boats, cars) with auto start/stop function, sports/supercars with hydraulic suspensions, and sound system competition cars.
In short, a deeply cycle battery is significantly steady and serves for a long time via discharging current at a max period rate.

Facts:

There are two label ratings of regular starting battery, CCA (Cold Cranking Amps battery delivering a surge of current at less than 32 °F temperature) and RC(Reserve Capacity battery maintaining 10-12 volts voltage while providing 25 amps power).

Thereby, A Deep Cycle Battery is 3 times the RC battery of a regular starting battery and a lowkey half of the CCA battery.

Furthermore, a deep cycle battery operates while withstanding tons of recharge/discharge period. Which a regular motor/car starting battery is not capable of or designed for.

What Is a Cranking or Starting Battery?

A cranking battery is a battery you always use to start a boat motor or car engine. As you primarily use this battery to start vehicles, it’s also called The Starting Battery.

Thereby, the cranking battery delivers a high amount of electricity to the motor/ engine, when the ignition is turned on.

Moreover, the main function of the Cranking battery is to provide a large amount of power to get the engine running.

Although the power surge is only short-term it’s fairly enough to get the whole motor or engine system to get running.

After that, the deep cycle battery gets in charge and operates the whole system going on till necessary.

Well, you can expect the deep cycle cell to operate for a very long time and give you the best experience of batteries.

Is It OK to Jumpstart a Car from a Deep Cycle Battery?

Usually, to jumpstart a car with a dead battery, we use another car’s active battery. As a car’s starting battery is always compatible with another one.

In this regard, a deep cycle battery is capable of jumpstarting a dead starting battery of the car. Still, you need to be cautious with some specific things—

You need to make sure that the deep cycles cell, you are going to recharge your dead battery with is 12 volts. A car’s starting batteries are usually 12 volts. Therefore, jumpstarting requires both batteries to be of the same power voltage.
Most of the time, the Deep cycle can moderately jumpstart a car with the same voltage. But, in odd situations like cold weather, the engine is not warm or tuned enough (Even the average starting battery is insufficient in these cases). An optimized starting battery, along with a deep cycle battery will do an OK job.
Another worth mentioning factor is that you must use thicker jumper cables while using a deep cycle battery to jump start. The thin cables won’t be compatible with the marine battery discharge flow.

Can You Use a Deep Cycle Battery AS a Starting Battery?

Of course, you can use a deep cycle battery for starting the motor in some odd situations.

But you need to use two or three cranking batteries functioning as you need to separate the engine’s starting battery from the regular accessory’s battery.

Also, many other systems of electrical and discharge/recharge will require some slight modifications as well. That’s because starting a motor needs a surging amount of power for a few moments at the start.

Thereby, you can simply use a Deep Cycle cell as a starting battery even more proficiently by doing this-

You should either decrease or increase the CCA of the accessory’s battery. With this, the power delivery amount of the deep cycle battery will be the same as that of a Cranking battery. The ideal amount to upsize the battery deliverance is by 20%.

Nevertheless, it’s all alright even without modifications to Use Deep Cycle Batteries for a Cranking Battery.

Difference Between a Deep Cycle Battery and a Cranking Battery

Like we said there aren’t many differences between a deep cycle cell and a starting battery. They both have the same lead-acid (deep cycle with a solid lead, starting battery with sponge lead) chemistry of batteries.

However, the only difference is the way they work, and for that their designs are modified as well.

Like, deep cycles are meant to discharge/recharge more than 80% than the regular battery. Therefore, to make it plausible marine deep cycle batteries consist of thicker electroplates and provide a steady flow.

On the other hand, cranking batteries electroplates are thin but with max power deliver consistency.

Again, starting batteries process with a huge burst of a power surge to start or ignite an engine. But, it’s a short period lasting.

Facts: There’s a Dual-Purpose Battery which works as the combinational battery of deep cycle and cranking battery.

Is Deep Cycle Battery Better than Regular Battery? (Which One’s Better?)

There can be different opinions regarding which one’s better between Deep Cycle Battery VS Regular Lead Acid battery.

On the basis of our experiences, we like both batteries according to their different benefits.

Deep Cycle Cells are long-lasting, steady, higher capacity, versatile, and require less maintenance. Likewise, Starting Batteries are lighter, with the potential surge of power, and capable of powering up any machine within a moment.

How Long Does a Deep Cycle Battery Last as a Starting Battery?

The life expectancy of a deep cycle cell is solely dependent on the amount of how much it is cycled every time.

For example, if each day the battery recharges and discharges 20%, it can last four times, the time till it can cycle up to 80%.

So, regarding the cycle’s discharge rate, the deep cycle cell can last for 2 years to 10 years.

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